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yeah, that's the thing. The AI/ML is something I'd like to play with / learn / experiment on, but it's only tangential to my current paying job at this point in time (I'm basically a freelancer).

"Expense" in my context means that I'll deduce about 50% off of the invoice come taxes time. I'm OK paying $400 of my own money for an AMD card, I'd think twice, but probably accept coughing up $800 for a 4090, but $2k is definitely over the budget at this stage.

Thanks for sharing the spreadsheet with Your benchmarks though. You're going into my "HN commenters to watch" list ;-)



I'm not sure where you're getting your pricing from but in the US a new 4090 is at least $1600, a 7900 XTX is about $1000 (a 20GB 7900 XT is $750-800). Used 3090s are usually about $700.

If you're just dipping your toe in I'd recommend using Google Colab or cloud rentals like Runpod/Vast.ai which will be more cost effective if you're not running 24/7 or want to have access immediately on tap.


Ah, sorry, I was talking about the money I would pay after the expense deduction of 50%. So, 4090 at $1600 would cost me about $800 of my own money in the end. That being said, I'm writing from the EU, so all these numbers are really just ballparks where I take 1EUR==1USD for the sake of simplicity.

Thanks for the rental tips though. I'll take a look. It's indeed more effective in the beginning...




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